a story that's ours
by Eternally Seventeen
Summary: A series of connected drabbles about the life and immense love of James and Lily, with a side of the very interesting marauderers. / #4 - The competition between Lily and Remus in classes melts into a friendship of sorts.
1. Red, Red Hair

**A/N: **I ship James/Lily with all my heart :)

This will be a series of semi-connected drabbles about the life and times of this lovely pairing.

Will update as soon as I can, **and when I know there are enough people to read and love James/Lily with me :)**

Hope you enjoy! Onward.

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**1 - Red, Red Hair**

"Potter, James!"

"I'll be right back, Sirius!"

"Oh, you better, James."

"Potter! There's bravery to the point of recklessness in there. Very intelligent, but you're more the sort that learns on the go than through books. You're a Gryffindor, through and through!"

"I knew it."

"Be safe, little one."

The Sorting Hat seemed already worried by James' inherently wild nature.

"I'll try!"

James walked to the Gryffindor table, triumphant.

"What did I tell you, Sirius?"

The boys wore identical, splitting grins on their faces. James looked around the table, and his eyes caught a girl with glowing red hair earnestly soothing another girl.

"Who is that?"

Sirius wasn't very interested. "Who?"

"The girl with the very red hair."

Sirius hardly gave her half a glance. "How do I know?"

James feigned disinterest. "Just thought maybe you'd have a clue."

"Nope." The words came out all funny and James looked at his new friend only to find his mouth stuffed with chicken.

He hadn't even noticed that food had begun to appear on the table,.

"Why isn't the redhead eating?"

Sirius couldn't care less; all the food before him was enough to keep him distracted for a month. "Why aren't you?"

And James had no idea how to respond. All he knew was that he couldn't look away from the girl with the red red hair.

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_Do drop a review and follow if you're interested in reading more :)_


	2. You Light Me Up

**You Light Me Up**

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James was enthralled with the Gryffindor common rooms from the very beginning and was in danger of spending more time there than in classes.

The fact that he shared classes with a certain redhead was the only reason he reluctantly dragged himself off his plush bed and got ready just in time for lessons.

Clearly, he and mostly everyone else didn't have the same idea of 'ready' as he did.

"Is it too hard to drag a hairbrush through your hair, Mister Potter?" Professor Flitwick's tone bore no malice, but James turned beet red as everyone's hair flew to his unkempt hair.

_Including hers._

"Uhh, it won't happen again, professor."

"I sure hope so, Mister Potter." He didn't look too convinced and James was ready to do anything to divert the old man's attention.

"So, er, professor, what will we be doing today?"

Sirius sniggered besides him and James delivered a swift kick to his shin. The grin fell of Sirius' face, only to be replaced by a scowl.

"What was that for?"

James ignored him as Professor Flitwick cleared his throat elaborately. "Today, we shall be learning the most basic of spells – how to bring light where there is none. Repeat after me – _lumos!"_

"Lumos!"

The whole class called out obediently in unison, but only one wand was alight with a steady, bright light.

"Excellent, Miss Evans!"

James turned around.

It was the girl with the red hair. James felt a thrill shiver up his spine.

"_Evans"_, he whispered to himself, and his face broke out in a joyous grin.

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Entered in Bex' Monthly Het-Tastic Drabble-Athon Competition, prompt #14: Light


	3. Inkblots

**Inkblots**

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Lily couldn't wait to send her first letter back home since she came to Hogwarts; to her parents, of course. Her sister was still hopelessly angry at her and Lily was so afraid of writing to her.

Her mind was rather conflicted as she sat by the fireplace in the common room, her tongue sticking out a little to the side as she carefully tried to print words on to her parchment. She was used to different writing equipment and had still not mastered the quill, so inkblots kept dropping on to her parchment.

"Urgh!" she cried out in frustration as she balled up yet another piece of parchment and threw it into the fireplace. She watched as the flames licked it till it ceased to exist, but her reverie was broken by a mini commotion.

"I dare you, James. All you have to do is grab the first thing you see in Filch's drawer!"

Lily looked up to watch James surrounded by a group of extremely excited boys and absently wondered if James would be silly enough to take up on the dare.

"That's all? It's easy, no problem. See you back here in half an hour, tops."

Lily sighed and imagined the various forms of detentions he was likely to land in once he was caught breaking into Filch's office. She shuddered. Filch gave her the creeps.

She watched till James left the common room and decided to try writing with a quill another time.

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Entered In:

The Monthly Het-Tastic Drabble-Athon Competition (November), prompt #87: Home


	4. The Benefits of Erudition

**The Benefits of Erudition**

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Lily was frustrated beyond belief with the labels thrust upon her simply because she happened to enjoy (and maybe top) all her lessons. She couldn't help it – her heart thudded with delight every time she cast the perfect charm and her nostrils flared in appreciation the second she turned to the first page of a new book.

James was growing used to her perfection by now and his hurled no more snarky comments at her. He would never be brave enough to say it, but the boy had admitted defeat. There was one student who hadn't, though – Remus Lupin, an otherwise silent boy who was an enigma to practically the entire bath of second years.

He was getting rather frustrated with being the second-best after Lily, and a particularly unnerving potions lesson with Professor Slughorn was his undoing.

"Lily Evans?" He tugged on her arm as she prepared to exit the dank classroom.

"_How _do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Achieve perfection?" he admitted grudgingly.

But Lily only beamed happily in response.

In what she had presumed to be an uninspired class, she had finally discovered a kindred spirit whose thirst for learning matched her.

"Want me to help you?"

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Entered in:

The 10,000 Challenge (entry #2) with wordcount 200 and prompt **kindred.**

The Monthly Het-Tastic Drabble-Athon Competition, prompt #17: book


	5. In Your Eyes

**In Your Eyes**

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You don't understand why it never goes.

The thought of the shower beating incessant rhythms around you as it soaked you to the bone terrified you more than it should a normal teenager. Your days began and ended with _scourgify_, and you were more than aware of the curious glances your roommates threw at you when you were always the last one to enter the showers and the first one out of it.

All you can remember from that night is a loud _crack. _But you were immediately dipped in pitch black darkness and you couldn't find your way out.

It didn't frighten you to spend time mulling over your thoughts in the dark – no, what bothered you the most is the fact that you were lost and disoriented and had to abandon the last vestiges of control over yourself. It took merely five minutes for Professor McGonagall to fix the lighting in the girl's bathrooms, after which everything looked absolutely the same. Your shower still rained warm sprinkles of water over you and your shampoo smelt like lilies of the valley, just the way you liked it.

But _you_ had changed. In the five minutes that it had taken to fix the showers, you went from loving showers to detesting the very idea of one. You felt robbed of a choice, of independence and you silently vowed never to step into one ever again.

So it hurts you when your classmate Mary vented all her frustrations over her disastrous potions at you, in front of a class stuffed with Gryffindors and Slytherins alike.

"Little Miss Perfect, brews her potions so well because she knows she can't take a bath to clean up later!"

It was the spark that everyone needed to start a fire.

"Oh, yeah! Do you even _bathe, _Lily? No wonder you smell like rotting vegetation," a blonde girl whose name Lily didn't know jeered.

Your hands shake for the first time since forever. Thoughts bubble in your mind but your mouth fails to form a retort.

"Quit it!" A voice roars from the back of the class and you look around in surprise. He looks back at you, his hazel eyes burning with a fire you had _never _seen before.

"Do you fancy girls, Laverna? Is it how you know all about Evans?" He glared at the offender till she turned away, ashamed.

You turn to him and smile then. The anger freezes on his face as he stares at you, a look so filled with wonder that you begin to feel odd. And then he smiles.

His smile floods you with the warmth of the sun on a bright spring afternoon and caresses you like the gentle breezes that kiss you in the autumn, and you feel yourself turn just a little pink.

"Who needs to bathe when there's so much to do out there?" he grins at you, winking roguishly. You nod mutely. _Just this once_, you promise yourself as you lose yourself in his eyes.

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**A/N**: Entered in:

The Phobia challenge: prompt #1, Ablutophobia

The Monthly Het-Tastic Drabble-Athon Competition: prompt #11, smile.


	6. The Storm Before The Storm

**The Storm before the Storm**

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"Hey, Evans," James began as he bounded into the common room, and Lily felt her antennae prickle with annoyance.

"James, I am irritated and in pain and I swear I won't hesitate the hex the pants off you if you come any closer to me." She already had her wand out and pointing menacingly at James, who only took it as a challenge to get as close to her as he could without, well, losing his pants or anything. Not like he would greatly mind if Lily was the one responsible.

So he edged closer to her and grinned salaciously as her eyes widened with annoyance and suddenly stood behind the sofa on which she was seated. With admirable confidence, the cheeky boy plucked a stray strand of her hair and played with it gently, watching with avid fascinated as the red strands danced like flame between his fingers.

Lily huffed, frustrated. "Potter, my stomach is hurting like a pair of beaters have repeatedly hit me with their clubs and I am losing blood at the rate of a lot per second. Do you think you can play with my hair another day?" She was just beginning to pride herself on the usage of a quidditch analogy in her tirade and didn't realise that James heard only what he wanted to.

"So, I can play with your hair when you're feeling better then?"

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Entered in:

The Battle of the Houses, prompt #2 (entry 1)

The Het-Tastic Drabble-Athon Competition, prompt # 96 - hex


	7. And The Storm

**And The Storm**

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He entered the common room to the sounds of muffled crying and wondered what had happened. He'd had an intense quidditch session and was caked with mud; all he wanted was to grab a change of clothes from his dorm and sink in the piping hot waters of a relaxing bath.

But he stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed a red head slumped miserably by the fireplace, surrounded by a gaggle of black and brunet ones while the red head only cried harder.

James sighed massively.

"Hey, Lil. What happened?"

The group of girls around her clucked protectively like mother hens.

"Go away, Potter, she doesn't need you here!"

"Leave her alone, will you? Insensitive boy," another girl huffed, trying hard to not look into his twinkling eyes.

His shoulders slumped, but James was not one to give up. He kneeled before her, trying to get a glimpse of her face while harbouring murderous thought for whoever dared cause Lily to cry, when –

_Bam._

Suddenly, James found his arms pinned behind his back and screamed as cold water drenched his back, the result of an exploded water balloon. He gasped as another one ambushed him from the side and two dropped straight on his head, bursting with loud pops.

The room echoed with peals of excited laughter as the predominantly female population giggled madly, Lily's the loudest of all.

James suddenly broke off from his temporary imprisonment and ran to Lily, shaking violently and showering her with little droplets of muddy water. She squealed. "James!"

"Lily," he laughed. "You caught me, no doubt. Better stay on the lookout now." With a wink, he disappeared into the dorms.

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Entered in:

The Battle of the Houses, prompt #2 (entry 2)

The Het-tastic Drabble-Athon Competition, prompt #31 - doubt


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